Reading lifts book to new height

A man walks into what might be an 1980s office to start the working day. He can’t get his computer to work, so after a few frustrating attempts, he picks up a book and begins to read aloud.

So begins a theatrical experience as extraordinary as it is unlikely. The book is The Great Gatsby and by the end of this marathon performance of Gatz -- eight hours in total -- the ensemble cast led by Scott Shepherd will have read every word of the novel, entirely inhabited the characters and the classic story, and earned themselves an extended standing ovation.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1926 novel is a powerful text, a short, but beautifully precise novel of doomed love, an allegory of the lost American dream.

Entrancing as the writing is on the page, it takes on a different life when read aloud, with each nuance of language and action magnified.

This production by New York’s Elevator Repair Service turns the book reading into a series of observations about what is happening on stage, just as the book’s narrator Nick Carraway observes events that unfold around him, as the lives of his enigmatic neighbour Jay Gatsby, his lover Daisy Buchanan and her brutal husband Tom spiral out of control.

There is a rhythm to the Octagon Theatre performance that gradually builds intensity, ensuring the audience’s attention is held fast for the duration.

Perfectly timed stage directions and sound effects keep the reading and the action together, and the cast’s performances bring out a surprising level of humour, including slapstick moments, that are not so obvious on a silent reading of the text.

In the end it feels like the audience is living through these events, we wonder at the truth behind the mysterious Mr Gatsby, laugh at Carraway’s somewhat distant, sardonic jokes, feel the dread of that drive “toward death through the cooling twilight” and reel at the horror of the “holocaust” at the Gatsby mansion.

Shepherd’s performance is singularly brilliant. He has played the role of Carraway is this production countless times around the world since its premiere in 2006, and knows the novel intimately. He is on stage almost constantly for the 61/2-hour performance.

He reads from the book at first, but by the final section he has put it aside, and delivers the text from memory flawlessly, including the emotionally draining final soliloquy.